Pictures from the shenanigans that occur weekly at the Hack Factory of Minnesota, including but not limited to, robot, welding, (unfortunately not pictures of a robot welding) pumpkin carving, paracord watches, crystal oscillator testers, people talking in a hallway, archery, and a smiley face drawn in Hack Factory dust.

Every Wednesday Twin Cities Maker opens it’s doors to the public, stop by and meet the makers of Minnesota. Congrats to the new members that signed up as well! We are still in need of about ~15 to 20 members to make this work into the future, so if you are interested is seeing Twin Cities Maker exist in the future it’s worth becoming a member.

Pictures from October 12th’s Open House @ the Hack Factory (every Wednesday) and some photos from the E Hack nights (every Monday).

New estimates from the board put us around 90-100 members to be in the black, that meaning we need ~100 to make rent, pay our other bills, and fund some of the routine things the board needs to do. This new estimate takes into account the more than expected amount of members at the student/unemployed rate. Last month we had 71, so we are close but we have a way to go.

If you have been looking at TC Maker for awhile or just found us and are interested, as always, we recommenced you to stop by our Wednesday night open houses, if that doesn’t work shoot the board an email and they can usually give you some good advise on when to stop by. They are @ info@tcmaker.org.

Twin Cities Maker would also like to welcome 3 new members that signed up tonight, welcome!

Here also is a short video that Steve put together for a community access show that may or may not happen, but the intro is made, and here for your viewing pleasure.

Mike Hord previous president of Twin Cities Maker and former member (he moved to Colorado) is one of the featured engineers on EEWeb.

Michael Hord

Michael Hord – Electrical Engineer, SparkFun Electronics

How did you get into electronics/engineering and when did you start?

I came to electronics fairly late in the game. It was my senior year of high school before it occurred to me that I could make a career out of it. My high school physics teacher told us some stories about the fun stuff the electrical engineering students he knew in college had made, and that sealed the deal. That is not to say I didn’t have interest in it in the past—as a child I took apart a ridiculous number of electronic gadgets, some of which my parents would rather I hadn’t.

After high school I went on to study engineering at North Dakota State University. For me it was a great decision because of its engineering program, which is very well-respected especially in the Upper Midwest region.

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?

My senses. I start out every troubleshooting session with four of my senses: does anything look wrong (size, shape, color), does anything feel wrong (hotter or colder than expected), does anything sound wrong (clicking, buzzing, whining), and what about smell (burning, unnatural odors)?

The best part is that setup and calibration time for these tools is zero. I always know where they are, and they’re pretty easy to use.

Mike was one of the members who worked on the Great Global Hackerspace Challenge that we entered and recently received our soldering irons from, thanks elemment 14!

Here is a video explaining the entry into the Hackerspace challenge

In another note if you look in the bottom left hand section of the photo above from the eeweb site you will a stack of plastic corrugated boxes, Mike is the one who was so kind as to donate hundreds of them to TC Maker when we first got our space, thanks Mike!

Twin Cities Maker Member and founder of Crazy But Able, John Wilson will be hosting a building of his new kit the Stella Amp. There are a limited number of seats available for the class so sign up early. Handmade Music will be providing the soldering stations and solder, you can bring your own irons if you would like as well.

No prior knowledge of soldering is needed there will be some people to help you along the way if this is your first time around the iron.

Due to the soldering irons this class is limited to persons of 8 years of age or older.

$5 and any sized bag of your clean unwanted clothing or $10 without donation

“There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness.”- Gandhi

Join in the communal process of reuse and celebrate our collective creativity! You are invited to Swap-O-Rama-Rama, a giant clothing swap and series of do-it-yourself workshops in which a community explores reuse and creativity through the recycling of used clothing.

It’s easy to make the move from consumer to creator – and it’s fun. At this Swap-O-Rama-Rama you’ll find a host of talent brought together to teach you how to transform your new/used duds into works of your own. Together they bring you: DIY Stations where you can learn many wonderful ways to create out of textile reuse, Sewing Stations where local designers will teach you fresh clothing mod tricks, on site Silk Screeners & Stencilers with a host of original designs and extraordinary local designers who’ll show off their work in the Swap-O-Rama-Rama reuse fashion show.

Of course the core of the swap is the gigantic piles of free clothing (several thousand pounds!) sorted into categories: pants, shirts, skirts, sweaters etc. These piles are the collective total of each guest’s contribution of any size bag of unwanted clothes so clean out those closets and let go of what’s no longer inspiring. Take home as much clothing as you can carry. Remainders go to a local charity.

Wondering what to bring?

clothes you bought and never wore

small stuff you bought while thinking “I’ll fit in to this one day”

tragic shopping mistakes

well worn and loved items that have exceeded their stay in the closet

unloved gifts that you held on to out of obligation Bring: Clothes in season: jackets, wallets, hats, pants,shirts, skirts, shoes, gloves, belts, accessories, jewelry, sunglasses, bags, costumes, lingere, pjs etc. Only clothes please! ********Do Not Bring: books, bikes, vases, lamps etc… If you cant wear it, dont bring it!********* Quantity is not important. Come with a little or a lot, whatever you got. Swap-O-Rama-Rama is for boys, girls, men, women.

Modeled after SparkFun’s Soldering class, TC Maker is offering a soldering class. The kit and the price is all the same but the location is a not Denver, it’s Minneapolis.

Description: If you’ve never soldered before, this is the class for you! This course teaches through-hole (90% of electronic kits) soldering and is recommended for the beginner. This is a hands-on class where the students learn techniques to help them solder through-hole components. Soldering can be daunting for the first solder joint, then the 2nd solder joint is not so bad, and by the time you’ve assembled the Simon game, you will be quite confident and proficient in basic soldering skills.

Classes take place at The Hack Factory. We provide all the tools, irons, solder, parts, and seats for 8 students. You’ll be soldering the Simon PTH Kit. By the end of the night, you will have a functioning game to take home and show off to your friends (we get funny looks all the time).

There is a minimum age requirement of 8 years old, but other than that, anyone is encouraged to sign up. We teach people all the time with no previous soldering experience!

The class is expected to take around 1 hour to complete, there is a buffer built in in case we go a bit longer.

Prerequisites: None! Just bring you. The class price includes the cost of the Simon Kit. The class is open to the public and to members.

What to bring: TC Maker will provide all the tools, irons and solder.

Proceeds above will go to help keep TC Maker electronics area, we want to get some decent components for the place. We will also be accepting other donations, including components if you have any around. If you are so inclined please do donate.

Time and Place: Friday Aug 26th 7:00pm to 10:00pm at the Hack Factory.

Who is Teaching: Paul Sobczak, Electrical Engineer, and other TC Maker members.

An introduction to the arduino, the development software, and interfacing with basic hardware. The class will be broken up into two days, split one week apart. The first session will be an introduction to the arduino, and coding. We will also be making a LED blink.

The second session will be working with sound and resources related to arduino.

No experience with arduinos or as an English major necessary.

What to bring: 1 arduino, 1 laptop, and the usb cable to connect the two.
Cost:$15 for non-members, $10 for members
When: 9/22 6:30 to 9:30pm, 9/29 6:30 to 9:30pm
Where: The Hack Factory. Minneapolis, MN
Total Students: 8
Teachers: Scott Hill (English Major) and Paul Sobczak (Engineering Major)
Sign up: EventBrite (if you are a tcmaker member you will need to pay $15 on the eventbrite page and we will refund you at the event)

If you do not have an arudino, please take some time to order one from sparkfun, or pick one up in town at Micro Center. If you do not have a computer send Paul a message to sobczak.paul at gmail.

Twin Cities Maker operates an open house every Wednesday from 7:00pm till late, and it’s open to the public! If you are interested in getting to know what TCMaker is about, or just want something to do on a Wednesday night stop by and say hello. Bring a project if you’re working one, or a problem if you need something fixed, we might be able to help.

If you’re on the blog you can see that we exceeded our member goal for June by 13 members! That is really great news for Twin Cities Maker! Thanks to all the members that have decided Twin Cities Maker is worth their time an effort.

We are currently at 83 members including the three that joined up on the 29th. Because some members get the $25 dollar rate for being a student or unemployed and the associated fees from paypal, the funds from membership are not as simple as 83×50, but we are getting really close to being in the black. We need about 85 to 90 members each month to be there, and it seems we are well on our way.

Spots are open for the upcoming class on brewing at the Hack Factory on the 18th. We will be going over an introduction on how to brew, sanitation, equipment, ingredients, and process. Best of all beer will brew!
Sign up on the Eventbrite page, and the facebook page.
More information on the forum post.

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Information

Twin Cities Maker (TC Maker) is a community group based in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Our mission is to make, share, and learn.

We have opened a maker space/hackerspace for members to build projects using various media and technologies, from wood and metal working to electronics to fabrics and beyond. We call our space the Hack Factory.